Top 10 Most Hated Tech Mascots Ever

Mascots are marketing personified. When they're good, they're grrreat, as Tony the Tiger, one of the world's more successful mascots might say. When they're lame, uninspired, annoying or perplexing, they might end up on a list like this. Mascots are particularly important in the technology industry, because so many tech products and services are intangible and would benefit from an evocative symbolic representative. It's hard to imagine Linux without thinking about penguins. As for the mascots t

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Though more in the realm of sports than tech mascots, the ongoing online promotion of Wenlock and Mandeville, mascots for the 2012 London Olympics, makes them fair game. If you haven't heard from them on Twitter or seen them on Facebook, perhaps that's for the best. Imagine Gumby rendered as a cyclops in Terminator-style chrome and you may get a sense of this odd pair. And then, for the sake of your sanity, try to forget these Lovecraft-inspired horrors.

There's no doubt Google has made headway into businesses: Just 28 percent discourage or ban use of its productivity ­products, and 69 percent cite Google Apps' good or excellent ­mobility. But progress could still stall: 59 percent of nonusers ­distrust the security of Google's cloud. Its data privacy is an open question, and 37 percent worry about integration.